The generosity of Chronicle readers never fails to impress me and the case of Keith Mulligan's fight for justice is a case in point.

Following the death of his father Jimmy, Keith is attempting to bring a private prosecution against the two men who were in the car that knocked Jimmy down.

The case caused outrage when the CPS determined there was insufficient evidence to bring a state prosecution, as neither Robert Webber nor Christopher Eade would disclose who was in the driving seat.

With no support from the CPS, a private prosecution is the only way Keith has left to bring Jimmy's killers to justice.

However, we all know the costs of private litigation are anything but cheap and so a fighting fund has been set up to raise some £25,000 to pay for the expert legal opinions needed to progress the case. Step in the Chronicle's readership who have been sending cheques to Keith's law firm, Patterson, Glenton and Stracey at Law Court Chambers, South Shields, NE33 1AW. It seems the community hungers for justice as much as the family.

If you're of a mind to make a donation, send a cheque to Keith's solicitors with "Justice for Jimmy" written on the back and let's see if, at last, Justice for Jimmy can be seen to be done.

The price of being in Euro 2004

No sooner does the domestic football season end than the whole circus starts again with Euro 2004.

In many ways the performance of the English team in the competition is less important than the performance of a minority of our travelling fans.

Their track record in competitions such as this has not been good. Those English supporters are regarded as a potential public order liability right across Europe. If you take the summer sun of Portugal, a penchant for strong lagers and a hard core of hooligans, the ingredients are set for an explosive cocktail of violence and drunken disorder. Should this happen the FA has been told England will risk forfeiting the right to participate.

Meanwhile, here in the North East and throughout the country, the airports are being watched, as are the ferries, to ensure no-one with a conviction for football hooliganism is allowed to travel.

Northumbria Police's Football Intelligence Unit knows who it is targeting, as do the Portuguese authorities. Of course it's costing us the taxpayers a small fortune to police this operation which seems ironic when you consider football as a business is awash with money.

We must ban guns

It's hard to believe that despite everything that's been said and done to curb the dangers that airguns present, we have yet another tragic case here in the North East. Seventeen-year-old Carl Ashbrook has lost the sight in his right eye in an incident that is virtually a copycat of the shooting of 15-year-old Nicola Diston who also lost the sight in one eye after being targeted by an airgun sniper back in 2001.

The Chronicle, in conjunction with Gateshead Council, launched a huge campaign after that shooting and persuaded the Government to ban the sale of airguns to minors and to raise the age limit for ownership from 14 to 17.

This morning a 15-year-old boy was due to appear in the youth court charged with causing grievous bodily harm to Carl.

So the facts of the case beg the question as to what exactly a 15-year-old was doing with an airgun anyway. Of course at that age, a degree of personal responsibility has to be taken as read, but as the boy is too young to legally own the airgun, whose was it, and why did that person not ensure a weapon as dangerous and powerful as this was kept safe and hidden away from irresponsible young hands? It seems we have to do much more than simply seek to change the law. We have to educate ourselves to recognise that an unsupervised weapon is an accident waiting to happen. Wouldn't it be so much simpler to ban these guns once and for all?

Closure of squalid units is right

The imminent closure of the women's unit and the high-security male unit at Durham Jail will see the end of a particularly unsuccessful and heartbreaking phase in that sombre building's history. Utterly damned by Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owens, the women's unit was described as "oppressive and claustrophobic" with high levels of disorder among a few of the inmates, making it impossible for staff to find the time to deal with the quiet despair of others. The grim suicide figures, the highest in the country, are testament to that "quiet despair". Unable to support prisoners either at the level of clean underwear or with any serious attempt at rehabilitation, the closure will be welcomed by prisoners and their families alike. In the future, Durham will house short-term offenders with the emphasis less on security and more on rehabilitation. Let's hope it's a change radical enough to exorcise the ghosts of its past.

IT looks like touch and go as to whether the postal ballot papers for June 10 will reach us all in time. John Prescott's office is taking the political flak for this confusion with many a local councillor already threatening to challenge the legitimacy of the election's outcome if the ballot papers fail to arrive in time. I have some sympathy for Two Jags, ordered by The Boss to rush this through, working against the advice of the Electoral Commission and the House of Lords. It surely can come as no surprise to hear the whole exercise has been fraught with confusions and delays. What is more tragic than surprising is that no-one stopped to think that the downside of such an exercise would be the inability of this nation to run a legitimate election at all. That, from the Mother of Parliaments, sadly makes us an international laughing stock.